


Dispatches from the Disc

by Goonlalagoon



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: A lot of these are quite short, Drumknott vs Moist's pencil theft, Includes Death in various musing on humanity and other situations, Moist vs Moist's infestation of mystery pencils, Sam Jr is having a great time, Sam Vimes is suspicious, The librarian makes a new friend, There's one entry set post major character death but it's generally upbeat in tone, but I still like them, have set archive warning anyway, there's a note at the start of the relevant chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-07
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2020-07-25 20:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 7,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goonlalagoon/pseuds/Goonlalagoon
Summary: A collection of Discworld stories cross-posted from my fanfic.net account, because while they're a bit old now I'm still quite fond of them





	1. Human traits

Death held an hourglass up to the light from a nearby candle. It was almost empty, but he had a few minutes before his particular service was needed. He looked around at the bookshelves for a moment, before walking over to one and pulling a book off. He flicked through it. It was a children's storybook. The subject appeared to be looking for their cow, having lost it. He turned to the back page, and sighed. He still didn't understand books. The concept of writing he understood, and he could grasp that people wrote down things to remember them-after all, he had his library, back home. But why bother writing down false words? And, more importantly, why read them _knowing_ they were false, and that if you turned to the last page, you would find out who killed who, or, in this case, where you had left your pet cow?

It was, he decided, just one more of those silly, human things. One of those silly human things he had to stop worrying about. But, it was tempting to try once more. Perhaps reading one last book would help understand better… He turned to the first page, and began his deliberate, self-imposed ignorance of the plot.

The library door opened, and two servants came in, muttering. They were searching for something. Death idly wondered if it was their pet cow…or sheep…

"Where is it, where is it, _where is it?_" hissed one servant. "If we don't find it….."

"I know, I know." Replied the other, coughing in the storm of dust he had disturbed rummaging through desk drawers. "If we haven't found it by six o'clock…." They paused, then renewed their search for the elusive whatever-it-was they were searching for.

Death turned the page.

"It's quarter to six!"

"I know! Be quiet and keep searching!"

Death read on.

"_Five minutes!_"

He reached the last page, and paused hopefully for a moment. When the moment passed, he sighed and put the book back on the shelf. He still didn't understand the human trait of the storybook. Well, he decided, that was it. He was a skeleton-admittedly, a walking, talking skeleton with a very important public service to provide-but a skeleton all the same. From now on, humans could do what they liked. He would deal with them once they were dead.

"Hang on…"

"Yes? Hurry up! It's almost time!"

"Did we check the bookshelf…..?"

Both turned to the bookshelf. The younger one stepped forwards and examined the books. The older man was breathing heavily from the frantic search, and leaned heavily on the desk chair, forgetting it had wheels. It slid away, and as the servant struggled to regain his balance he grabbed the edge of a bookshelf. Which wasn't attached to the wall. And was full of all 500 volumes of 'Professor Deric Carmatt's complete works on the structure of earthworm communities.' The younger servant turned, 'Where's my cow?' in his hand, at the noise, the triumphant smile of relief frozen in place.

The ghostly servant peered at the book.

"Ah, well done, lad. Found it. Always in the last place you look. Run and take it to Willikins, ready for Mr Vimes." The younger servant didn't move.

"Get a move on, lad! It's six! I Can hear the clocks ringing!" The younger boy was still staring at the pile of books and shelving on the floor. He started to back out of the room, then turned and ran, shouting,

"Willikins, sir! Your grace! It's Barry, sir! He's dead!"

"Dead? What's the boy on about-" The ghostly Barry looked down. "Oh. I'm dead."

Death nodded, having watched the scene impartialy. "**This is the case, yes.**"

"But we found the book! Six o'clock will happen!"

Death stared at him. Six o'clock always happened. Why would it not for a book? Humans. Always made life complicated. As the already transparent Barry faded away, something he'd said registered.

"**It's always in the last place you look…? But, you stop looking once you've found it! Why wouldn't it be in the last place you look?**" There was no reply, and Death was left to consider the general stupidity of humankind. Again.


	2. Pencils I (Drumknott)

He opened the desk drawer, and felt around. Eventually his fingers found one lonely pencil.

One pencil. Drumknott scowled. One pencil left, and he'd bought a new box only a few weeks ago. And they were all his. The Patrician had his own, so he hadn't taken them, and none of the staff would dare take even one.

In fact, Drumknott knew exactly who was stealing his pencils. It was really very vexing. Moist von Lipwig, ex-crook, had recently been summoned to the palace for many last-minute appointments, which he was usually the last to hear about. First it was that University anniversary stamp (politics); then the problem with the new paper dollar (forgery); the golem stamp (foreign politics); the next problem with the paper dollar (forgery); the Librarian getting very annoyed over a new stamp, after people started sending him letters with the orangutan stamp on saying "Hello Mr. Monkey." (Librarian politics); that problem with the ten dollar note (Inadvisably applied magic. And forgery.) The list went on. And every meeting needed something signing, or noting down. In short, needed a pencil.

And he never gave the damn pencil back! Every time, Lipwig walked out of the palace with one of Drumknott's pencils. The man even took them when Drumknott tied a piece of cotton around one, and held the other end!

And he couldn't complain, because Vetinari liked it. He used it as a way of checking that Lipwig still had his criminal mind, and it hadn't been locked down by chains of gold-ish.

Drumknott sighed, and sent someone to buy him fifty new pencils. He wondered how long they'd last. Opening his copy of the Times, he read a short article about the latest banknote forgery, glanced at the new stamp; 'Send the experience of a home-baked dwarf croissant to your cherished children living far from the family mine!' and closely examined the political cartoon.

By the look of things, he mused, the new order should last around a month.


	3. Pencils II (Moist)

Moist examined the pencil. He prodded it. It rolled, in the usual way of pencils. He picked it up, and wrote something with it. It wrote in dark grey lead.

It was, in fact, an ordinary pencil. He was quite sure of that. He was also quite sure that the other pencils were ordinary pencils.

What he _wasn't _sure of was where the damn things were coming from.

He hadn't noticed at first. After all, a pencil is, in essence, a pencil. Nothing more, nothing less. So it wasn't particularly strange that there were some lying around. They were a useful writing implement.

But, unless he was missing something important, you shouldn't mysteriously have what added up to a packet of pencils _in your pockets._

Moist was very sure of this. He was certain, in fact, that if pencils were in the habit of appearing in pockets, someone would've told him.

"Maybe they just grow?" He mused out loud, and winced. No. He didn't know where they were coming from, but he was fairly sure that they didn't grow in his pocket.

"Mr. Lipwig?"

Moist glanced up at the worried looking employee. He pushed musings on the mysterious pencil discoveries to the back of his mind.

"Hello. Jack, isn't it? What can I do for you?"

"Lord Vetinari would like to see you. At the palace."

Moist blinked, and looked at the paper open on the desk under the collection of pencils. Oh no…

"He says you have an appointment…" Moist sighed.

"An appointment right now, I assume."

"No sir." Moist blinked. Could it be? An appointment he knew about before he ended up in it….? "He said the appointment was right away _ten minutes ago_. Sorry, sir, but the hallway was blocked, and…"

Moist wasn't listening. He'd kept Vetinari waiting for ten whole minutes. He threw on his jacket, paused, and pulled a pencil out of the pocket. He hesitated a moment, wondering why it had a piece of cotton around it, then added it to the pile on the desk and ran to the palace.

When a exhausted Moist returned from the meeting with Vetinari, he was completely bewildered as to why he had yet another pencil in his pocket, or why it had a length of wire attached. He removed the wire, then sat staring at the pencils for a moment. Moist shrugged, picked up one of them, and entered the wonderful world of Administration.

They were, he thought, very good pencils.


	4. L-space

Mr. Roberts shuffled along between the aisles, examining the dusty titles of his wares by the morning light filtering thorough the dusty windows. That there were potential customers outside, possibly desperately searching for The Book(1) didn't worry him. Any true seeker of The Book would come back every day for weeks, months even, waiting for the hour he felt it necessary to open.

True seekers were the only customers the book seller could trust. A true seeker could be trusted to treat The Books with their due respect, lift them down gently, stand for a moment feeling the power of the words, have a space for them ready on a shelf, and _have a bookmark with them in the shop._

Mr. Roberts was a firm believer in bookmarks. Anyone who carried a bookmark with them would have an automatic friend in the old man. Folding over pages was criminal Even_ worse_ was damaging a book. If bookmarks made you a friend of Mr. Roberts, damaging a book took you straight into enmity and out the other side.

A person who damaged books wasn't the embodiment of evil (2), they were original sin.

He was so engrossed in his search for The Book, he didn't notice when his slipper clad feet began to disturb dust between shelves not in his shop. He scarcely noticed the change in lighting as he crossed time streams from morning to night, and any notice he took was pleasure that no light would reach his precious books to damage them.

"Aha! Here we are!" The old man lifted down a thin book, knowing with some deep instinct that this was The Book. He held it lovingly, then turned to go back to the stairs to his room above the shop, make a cup of tea, sit in front of the fire and read.

He wasn't in his shop.

* * *

(1)Not _a _book, but _the_ book: the book that particular person needs to read/feels drawn to read at the time in question.

(2)That was a person who folded page corners.

* * *

The Librarian followed the footprints in the dust the next morning. He didn't know who the intruder was, but he was going to find out. When he saw the old man shuffling around in his slippers, clutching a book and looking bewildered, he shook his head.

"Ook."

"Oh, hello. I don't suppose you know where I could find the librarian, do you?"

"Ook." The Librarian began to lead Mr. Roberts towards the entrance to the library.

"Really? Then you know all about L-space, then. I went and wandered out of my world, didn't I?" The Librarian nodded.

"You do have a wonderful library here, you know." Mr. Roberts looked around wistfully. "But I do wish I could go home to my little shop. Impossible, I know."

As they reached the Librarian's desk, he brightened. "This is a university isn't it?"

"Ook. Ook?"

"Complete lack of activity. Lazy things. I don't suppose you need an assistant, do you? I could mend books." He looked the Librarian in the eye. "To be honest, I didn't like selling books. I'd rather keep them. And students rarely use bookmarks. I've heard some use books as _doorstops._"

The Librarian thought for a moment, then nodded. "Ook."

"Thank you. I'm Mr. Roberts, by the way." The newest employee of the Unseen University took his first good look at his new co-worker. "I say, aren't you a mon-"

"Eek!" The Librarian pointed at a plaque a thoughtful wizard(3) had placed on his desk.

"All visitors to this library are encouraged to refrain from calling the Librarian a M-O-N-K-E-Y, as he finds it offensive.

Failure to comply will result in the offender being physically assaulted by the Librarian, and the staff of the Unseen University will accept no responsibility. The Watch, as well as all lawyers in the city, will also not investigate or attempt to punish any act of violence by the Librarian in these circumstances.

Thank you."

"Ah. Of course. Well, where's the first book to repair?"

The Archchancellor was surprised at the latest addition to his staff, but after the Librarian demonstrated graphically what would happen to anyone who was disposed to remove his new assistant, Mr. Roberts was accepted into the University, regardless of being completely unmagical.

Mr. Roberts never got rid of his slippers, and was very happy when for Hogswatch one year he was given a new pair. He only rarely missed his little shop, but the rest of the time was content to mend books and come down heavily on any students who broke the library rules.

The Librarian liked his new assistant, and was slightly protective of him. Librarians had to look after each other. With L-space, you never knew whose library you could end up in.

* * *

(3)Ponder Stibbons, who was getting fed up of people running (or limping) up to him(4) and shouting "the giant monkey attacked me! What are you going to do about it?"

(4)Stibbons was at a loss as to why they came to him, but the simple fact was he was one of the few wizards who used the library regularly, and looked passably like a student(5), who therefore would be in need of something to do.

(5)He looked sufficiently like a student for a person who has just been hit on the head a few times by an angry orangutan, that is.


	5. Painting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, Death gets a Hogswatch present

Sir Reynold cleared his throat nervously in an attempt to break the silence. Usually he didn't mind silence in the gallery-it showed that people were appreciating the restored Rascal as it was supposed to be seen. But this was different. The visitor had been standing still, staring at one small part of the painting for most of the day.

"You, ah, wouldn't know it had been damaged, ah, if nobody told hyou." The head turned to look at him.

**Why not? I can see where you have had to stick it back together again. ** Death turned back to the painting. **How did he do it? It's just pigment on canvas, but-**

Sir Reynold jumped at the opportunity.

"Hwell, Rascal hwas a very talented painter. But, if hyou would, ah, leave? The gallery closed an hour ago."

**Closed? Ah, yes. You make everyone leave for the night, for absolutely no obvious purpose. Perhaps you are worried that the paintings will be worn out. Goodbye.**

It was very strange, but Sir Reynold couldn't quite remember what the man had looked like after he'd gone.

* * *

Death looked out over the valley. Dwarves and trolls had fought here for generations, although that had now stopped, thanks to one Sam Vimes, a man who was, against all expectations (including Death's own, which were rarely wrong) still alive. Poetry had been written about it, stories were told, and a painter had made it his life's work to paint one bit of it. The words 'majestic', 'dramatic', occasionally even 'beautiful' were used to describe Koom Valley. People said it looked like the gods had gouged out lumps of rock in anger and sent a river flowing along it.

To Death it looked like the results of centuries of horizontal erosion from a river with a fast stream and very rapid surface run off, prone to floods, with a large drainage basin*.

But even though he couldn't understand why humans were unable to see a natural process taking place without giving it a story, it did give them such freedom. The _creativity_ of it all. He'd never got the hang of that, either. The music even he could tell was going wrong. He'd tried writing, briefly, but it just didn't make sense. He couldn't see the point. So, in the time honoured method of sentient beings universally^, he'd given up.

Then Hogswatch had come. Or, more specifically, the Hogswatch _present_ had come. From Susan, who had spent a very awkward day with him. But she'd said it was a day for family, and it had to be done~. He'd unwrapped the bright red paper to reveal a set of paints and a pad of painting paper+.

He'd never tried painting before. It was harder than it looked, and it had almost immediately seemed like a failure. But, when he'd finished his first piece of paper and put it on the wall, he'd…liked it. It didn't look like the corn field, it looked like a lot of pigment on paper, but…there was something _there_. Something that hadn't been there with music, or words, but was in the paints.

**Squeak.** The Death of Rats handed him a paintbrush from where he was sitting on top of the easel.

Death grinned, and began to try to capture an entire geographical feature that had been created by the movements of water on a small piece of white paper. It was a human idea. Stupid, impossible, and incredibly, incredibly fun.

He _liked_ painting.

* * *

*He'd never been very good at writing tourist guides.

^Up to and including the lumps of slime on the planet Tiujala, who have no arms or legs and whose entire language consists of the word 'gloop'.

~He didn't know _why _it had to be done, but she had her school teacher voice when she said it, and even Death didn't like arguing with teachers.

+Bound in black, of course. This was a present for _Death, _after all.


	6. Paperclips

Drumknott scarcely heard the bell go as he opened the door* and walked without thought to the section he required. This was a matter of vital importance.

That it should be assumed he didn't buy his own paperclips! The shame of it. He bought all of his own stationary. Pens, pencils+, and most _certainly_ paperclips.

There was just something so…useful about always having something that could hold sheets of papers together in your pocket. And having your own meant that _you knew exactly how many you had left_. No one else used Drumknott's paperclips. Ever.

Vetinari raised one eyebrow a few millimeters as he watched his secretary carefully position the new box of paperclips on his desk^. He also noted the deliberate way in which any documents requiring attaching to each other were attached using a paperclip taken out of Drumknott's pocket.

He decided that for the sake of the other man's sanity he would be careful to avoid so much as suggesting that Drumknott didn't buy any of his own stationary.

* * *

*The universal symbol of a shop that considers itself to be doing well if it gets more than one customer in a whole week.

+A lot of pencils, which almost always ended up in Moist Von Lipwig's pocket before they were even half used.

^With a precision that could be considered worrying, except that the person doing the considering thought that anyone who found anything as mundane as precision worrying was too easily frightened, and was also a believer in being precise`.

`When it suited him.


	7. Colour

Death was annoyed and confused. And mildly embarrassed.  
But he had a job to do, and he was not one to shirk his duty*. He picked up his selection of hourglasses, and headed to Binky's stall with the wearied tread of one who knew that this was going to be a long day^.

"Oh. I'm dead, then."  
"YES."  
"I didn't know you came for, well, people like me. Thought you'd only turn up for the nobby folk, wizards and the like. Or those what died interesting and important deaths, not just drifted away."  
"I COME TO THE END OF EVERYONE, EVEN IF THEY DO NOT KNOW THAT I AM THERE."  
"Oh. Well, that's nice. Nice to feel, well, like there's someone to help you on."  
"YES. THAT'S ME."  
"Only, er, I sort of thought you'd look, well, a bit _different_. A skeleton, yes, that's exactly what I would've thought. And the scythe. Just as the story books show you. But..?"  
"THERE WAS A MIXUP WITH THE WASH."  
"Ah. Happens to us all. I remember one time with my best shirt..."  
"I REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW IT HAPPENED. IT'S VERY ANNOYING."  
"Well, I think it rather suits you."  
"REALLY?"  
"Oh, yes. Bit of colour."  
"I DON'T REALLY _DO_ COLOUR."

He didn't know how it had happened. It should have been impossible. But it had happened.

A great calamity had befallen Death himself, the skeletal spirit who could not be pleaded with or swayed from his purpose. The one who was there at the end for everyone to send the soul on to whatever came next, scythe clutched in one bony hand, eyes blue flames in his skull, clothed in robes that seemed to be made of darkness itself.

Well, usually, that is. Somehow, defying all laws of colour theory, his robes had come out of the wash rather…altered…from their usual and correct state.

Death really was _not_ convinced by pink.

*It caused all kinds of chaos when he did.  
^And an anthropomorphic personification with a 24 hour job lacking the ability to sleep _really_ knows about long days.


	8. Rectrix I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Rectrix = governess, though I think it may actually be a less common translation)

Commander Samuel Vimes was suspicious*. There was something baffling afoot, he just knew it. And he intended to find out what it was. It would require careful observation, diligent gathering of evidence, and extreme discretion.  
Otherwise Sybil would find out.

"Sam, what on earth are you _doing_?"  
"I'm sitting down, dear."  
"I can see that." She shot him a look that added in clear wife telepathy '_I can also see that you're sitting such that your ear is pressed firmly against that door.'_ He sighed, and got up, following her a little way down the hall.  
"I just wanted to listen for a moment, see what they were up to-"  
"Sam, he doesn't need you listening at every moment. He's not in any _danger_."  
"I know, I know…"  
Sybil shook her head.  
"Even for you, Sam, this is unusually, well…extreme. Usually you just interview the poor girls for five minutes when they first arrive to check that they're not secretly assassins."  
"No, dear. The price on our son's head is even higher than on Vetinari's." Lady Sybil paused, rearranging what she had been about to say.  
"_Really?_"  
"Yes. " Sam was grimly proud of that. Ha! No-one targeted his family. Well, not anymore^. Sybil blinked a few times.  
"Well, then. No listening at doors!"  
"Yes dear…" He watched her bustle off to feed the dragons. No listening. That would be a spanner in the works. Well. Not if he so happened to go and take a nice _long_ bath. He wouldn't _listen_, but he couldn't help if he _heard_, now, could he?

"How was your day, dear?"  
"It was good! We did fossils today. Look, here's one!"  
"That is nice. Be sure to give it back."  
"No, it's mine. I found it." In the usual way of child speech, this passed under the parental radar. It didn't quite make it under the Vimes Hyper Alert radar, though.

_Found_ it? Where on earth would they _find_ a fossil in a first floor room that had been cleaned only that morning? Without making the slightest sound?  
Something was definitely going on.

* * *

*Being a policeman, Vimes was of course always suspicious. In this case, he was more suspicious than usual.

^ The last man to try was currently in the pleasant situation of trying to decide who's displeasure was the least pleasurable, Vimes' or Vetinari's. He was finding it an extremely, and surprisingly, close run thing.


	9. Rectrix II

It was several days later before Vimes received a Clue. In that time, largely occupied by the vast quantities of paperwork that, even with the help of A.E. Pessimal, he was required to read and sign, he grew steadily more and more uneasy~. Samuel Vimes did not like mysteries, particularly not ones he was involved in. There had been far too many, and they tended to cease to be mysteries very suddenly, and often dramatically. Wee Mad Arthur glided into the Watchouse, causing several watchmen to cover their heads*. He shot Vimes a quizzical look upon seeing him.

"What is it?"  
"Nothing much, sir, but I thought you were on holiday."  
"Why?"  
"Well, sir, your lad was wandering around the Chalk up by the Feegle mounds all this morning. I can go an' fetch him if he wasnae supposed ta be there."  
"Sam. In the _Chalk_? Are you –"  
"Positive, sir. Even spoke to the lad. He said he was looking for fossils and burial mounds."  
Sam Vimes was for a moment speechless. Then he stood up.  
"Right, I'm going home."

"What are you on about, Sam? Of course Young Sam isn't off in the country somewhere! He's in the schoolroom, having lessons, as usual." Vimes ignored his wife, and pressed his ear to the keyhole. After a minute he stepped back and gestured for her to do the same. She objected, but eventually did, puzzled. Two minutes passed, and she stood up.  
"Absolutely silent. Perhaps I should knock…?"  
"No, dear, I have a better idea…"  
It only took a few minutes to have the ladder against the wall and to scramble up it, even while holding a cloth. Just in case. He didn't want to have to explain to his son why he was spying. He was just cleaning a window. Happened to glance in. All explanations and alibis were unnecessary, as it turned out.

"What do you mean, they're not in there!"  
A quick search of the house and grounds put Sybil's protestations that they were merely doing some research around the place to rest. Vimes paced up and down, growing steadily more and more worried. The clock chimed, and they both looked up as footsteps came running down the hall. The door opened.  
"Mum, dad, look at _these_!" Young Sam was beaming. He held out a muddy hand, and both parents peered at the collection of objects.  
"A fossil, a stone with a hole in it, and a feather."  
"Very nice, dear. You are going to wash those before putting them on your shelves, aren't you?"  
"Yes mum. Dad, can I have a proper cupboard? Like the museum ones."  
"Ask the hogfather."  
"But _dad_. Hogswatch is _ages_ away." Sybil hid a smile.  
"Well, then. You'll just have to wait. Your shelf will do for now."  
Sam sighed, but couldn't remain downbeat for long.  
"I'll find loads of things to put in it when I get one." He looked ready to go running off hunting for objects of interest that instant.  
"Good lad. Where are you going to look?" Young Sam thought for a minute.  
"I'll go the Ramtops soon. You get stones that stick to metal up there! I'd like one of those."  
"The Ramtops are a long way away." Young Sam shrugged.  
"I'll be quick."

A week later, while putting his son to bed, Vimes glanced at the 'collecting shelf' over the bed. There was a small stone sat next to the two fossils, with a needle stuck to it.

* * *

~ The accumulated paperwork of the Watch was steadily falling before the combined might of A.E. Pessimal and Gooseberry. Vimes now only had to deal with relatively small piles of paper, usually with polite directions stating exactly what needed doing and highlighting any important background information not included. For the first time in many years, Vimes had achieved a clean floor, and a desk that didn't have an inch of paper covering every square inch.

*Wee Mad Arthur's birds were always perfectly Feegle trained. This meant that the concept of 'house trained' was entirely foreign^.

^ One or two watchmen decided that while they could deal with bird doings in their hair, they couldn't cope with them in their morning tea, and covered their mugs instead.


	10. Rectrix II

Angua gave Vimes a concerned look when he entered the watch house the next morning.  
"Sir? Are you alright?"  
"No, Angua, I am not. My son has somehow managed to go to the Ramtops and back _without us noticing!_" The werewolf stared.  
"Are you sure, sir? It's a fair journey, unless you travel by magic." Vimes glared at her.  
"I know. I don't know how they're doing it. It's that governess, I just know it is!"  
"Governess?"  
"His new governess. Friend of Sybil's recommended her. Ever since she arrived, the schoolroom's been silent, and he's been off finding fossils in the chalk, metal attracting stones in the Ramtops, and gods know what else!"  
There was a pause, while Angua considered whether to run and fetch a glass of water for the Commander.  
"Sir, this governess…"  
"Yes? What about her?"  
"Would she be called Susan? White hair? Well, mostly white."  
"Yes! It moves, I'm sure it does! You know her?"  
"Yes, sir. I see her in Biers sometimes." Vimes froze. "Oh, don't worry, sir. She's not a vampire, or a werewolf. She's not really an undead. She's…well, sir, Young Sam is safer with her than he is even with you."  
"What makes you say that, Captain?"  
"Well, sir…she's Death's granddaughter. It's…complicated."  
"But he's a skeleton!"  
"Yes, sir. Like I said. It's complicated."

"Right. Now, you are not to wander off, understood?"  
"Yes Miss Susan."  
"Good. Now, you remember to be _polite_ to Nanny Ogg. She knows a lot about herbs."  
"Is she really a witch?"  
"Yes."  
"Wow!"  
Susan smiled. She rather liked her new student. He was very enthusiastic, and utterly unfazeable.  
"Off we go, then."


	11. Badge No 177

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick fic inspired by a post on from "the-unseen-academical" regarding the concept of shepherds on the Chalk being buried with a piece of wool and suggesting the Watch may have a similar concept...
> 
> (warning, this one is set post death of a major character, though details of the how/why are deliberately vague)

The funeral is well-attended, which is probably _not_ what he'd have wanted, his friends later agreed. He wouldn't have wanted all of the society big-wigs turning up to look formal and solemn in expensive mourning clothes, murmuring politely about _what a loss_ and _did so much for the City_, most of them probably thinking _excellent, I can get away with it all now_*. But it goes smoothly, and when they're saying their final goodbyes, Carrot steps forwards and carefully pins the badge onto the shroud. After all, Commander Samuel Vimes wouldn't be seen alive _or_ dead without his badge.

* * *

Vimes was almost across the desert when the badge appeared. Death had told him what to do, and in the absence of anything else, he'd done it. Walking was an ingrained habit, and it was better than sitting around thinking about _Sybil_ and young _Sam_, both of whom must by now know that he wasn't coming home again.

There was an odd shimmery feeling, his battered armour flickered for a moment into a shroud, and when it solidified again, his badge was back in its rightful place. He froze for a moment, briefly puzzled, before relaxing as he remembered.

It had long been tradition, brought down from the Chalk downs, that Watchmen* are buried with their badge. The Chalk shepherds say that the gods must allow for the fact that during the lambing, or similar, a shepherd may not be able to make it to church as often as they would like, and pin a bit of wool to them at the funeral to alert the gods of the fact. Some bright spark had decided that the Watch should operate under the same principle. Vimes had always been a bit cynical about it*, on basis that most Watchmen weren't too fussed about getting to church anyway and after a few weeks on the street you tended to lose faith in gods, and quite often people.

Vimes plodded along for a few moments, deep in thought. Then, very slowly, he started to grin.

"Well, a Watchman's work is never done."

* * *

"…innumerable counts of negligence of those under your protection. I also accuse you of the wilful destruction of at least thirty three cities, on the evidence provided in this transcript in your own words. Have you anything to say in your defence?"

"I'm a _God!_ You can't arrest _me!_"

Commander Samuel Vimes can arrest _anyone_.

* * *

* They won't, because he's left plenty of people behind to take up his mantle.

* And, more recently, women

* In fairness, Sam Vimes was a bit cynical about _everything._


	12. Familiar

Witches have always tended towards cats as pets. Cats are mysterious, aloof and often fiercely independent, a combination of traits shared by many witches. Cats also just _work_ when it comes to looking witchy, there's no denying it.

Tiffany had toyed with the idea of a cat. Something to have around the cottage - she was finally in her own cottage, after a fashion. How they had hidden it from her she still didn't know, but one fine summer day she had been shown up to the Down, where a shepherding hut was waiting for her. It was easier than living permanently at home, she didn't wake her parents or Wentworth every time there was a late night emergency, and the privacy was nice.

It helped with the Boffo as well. Though it was not unusual for a lad or lass to live at home until they were married, witches tended to move out early. A witch living at home was still somehow a child, yet a witch was not a child, no matter how young. Witches needed independence, privacy and respect. She still had free run of the home farm dairy, and tried to take regular meals back on the farm. She was busy, of course, and her days were never empty, but sometimes it could be almost lonely in the hut, even with her permanent entourage of Feegles*.

It was just after Hogswatch when someone brought her the puppies. Their mother had passed away while birthing, and the farmer couldn't look after them himself. With a sigh she had agreed to find homes for them, and taken the warm box from him. It had meant a whole host of extra jobs, feeding and checking for fleas, even basic household training.

It didn't take long to find homes for three of the four black and white bundles of fur. They were from good stock, healthy and likely to be good sheepdogs once they'd grown up and been trained. The last she worried about for a week before reaching a decision.

Tiffany had often thought about getting a cat, because a cat is a witches pet. But she didn't need a cat to be a witch.

She was the Hag o' the Hills, and she walked the downs with her sheepdog by her side.

* * *

* A cat would have also have kept the mice down, except that with Feegles about, mice and rats were conspicuously absent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of Tiffany being given a surprise cottage up on the Downs of her own was based on this fanfic s/6652932/1/The-Cottage-on-the-Chalk, which is a lovely little one-shot and if I'm honest, is exactly the backstory I am assuming for how Tiffany got her cottage here - only I've switched it to being a Sheparding Hut like Granny Aching's in my own headcanon.
> 
> Concept of Tiff with a sheepdog not entirely new to me, but solidified after seeing a post on Tumblr about Discworld daemons, which very appropriately gave Tiffany a sheepdog rather than the typical witch's cat daemon.


	13. Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A character study of sorts focusing on Anagramma Hawkins, who though often unpleasant I've always found to be an interesting character - and I very much liked her development in Wintersmith.

Anagramma Hawkins made pride her armour. She was, after all, a witch, and you are far more likely to meet a witch who doesn't wear a pointy hat than one who is not, in her own way, proud.

* * *

Most of the time, she felt like pride was all she had. On days when there wasn't quite enough food, days when the farmer's children laughed at her, on days when she looked around and realised her family had nothing that could not be taken away but themselves and their pride, she knew her pride was all she had.

_The first time she did magic, she realised she had found something else that no one could take away from her_.

The news that little Anagramma was a witch had spread quickly through their village - though not as quickly as the fire she had out out through sheer force of will would have. People started to take their hats off to her in the street, to thank her, to nod and smile and ask when she was leaving for the mountains. The farmer's children lowered their gazes respectfully when she walked past, and no longer laughed at her for the stains and tears in her clothes.

_And she had decided that no one would take that respect away from her, either._

Miss Level was, frankly, a disappointment.

_She was the fear, the warning, the joke witch who had no respect and no pride_.

Anagramma sat out her time with the two women with gritted teeth and upturned nose, scathing comments rolling from her with every exhale. Miss Level flinched away, and the young girl exhaulted at her victory.

_She was proud and she was strong, and no one would doubt her again._

Miss Earwig was so much better. Tall and mysterious, proud and unashamedly witchy, she talked about Magyk and not just being some sad old woman with her nose in everyone's business doing their chores for them because they were too stupid or lazy to do things themselves.

Mrs Earwig took her to a clothes shop and had black dresses and cloaks made, helped her choose a hat in Zac Zac's, and nodded approvingly when Anagramma spent all of her money on a silver charm.

"A witch must _look_ like a witch."

Yet though she looked in the mirror and saw exactly what she wanted to see, Anagramma's pride still burned at the way Mrs Earwig had sniffed "good riddance" when they threw her old clothes away.

_She liked the way Mrs Earwig thought and talked, but she didn't really like her. But affection was second to respect, and she knew that the older witch held the key to getting it._

When she started the coven, Anagramma refused to admit she was nervous. It was_ her_ coven. And she was in charge. She had been there the longest, she knew the most, and she was the best. She made sure they didn't forget it, snapping and sighing, impatient and disdainful but also secretly glad of Petunia's incompetence, Dimity's foolishness. They were incompetent and foolish and she was not, and that made her the best, so she got their respect.

_Too many years of bitterness and teasing kept her from wanting their friendship._

And then Tiffany Aching turned up.

_A witch in sky blue and grass green, full of doubt and puzzled certainty, who listened to Anagramma's instructions with a tilted head and a slight raise to her eyebrow that suggested she didn't think much of what she was hearing._

She had enjoyed tearing the newcomer down, with her foolish claims that Mistress Weatherwax had _bowed _to her and given her an _invisible hat_. Not to mention her countryside bumpkin nature, with her absent minded mentions of _cheese_, of all things. The girl was clueless, clearly, couldn't even articulate what magic she had done properly, and didn't even know how to dress properly.

_Anagramma didn't let herself question why it was so vital that Tiffany be mocked, why she was responding as though the other girl was a threat._

At first, she was glad that Tiffany had come to her for help, though she didn't show it. Even if the girl was a bumpkin, she was asking Anagramma for help and that meant she knew Anagramma was better than her. But almost immediately she became concerned. Suddenly, Tiffany was far better at magic than she had been, and Anagramma wasn't sure she liked it. After their shopping trip, she was _terrified_, and she scarcely tried to hide it.

_She was bitter, too, that Tiffany could do so much and command so much awed respect so quickly._

During the Witch Trials, which she thought was a perfectly _awful _name, Anagramma wasn't entirely certain what was going on. Tiffany seemed to have lost whatever abrupt magical prowess she had gained just as abruptly, and yet she seemed more comfortable back in her old boots and green dress than in all of her witching finery.

The air shimmered in the middle of the arena, and everyone knew where Tiffany really was, even though she was standing right in front of them. Everyone knew what she had done, everyone knew how impressive it was, and Tiffany refused to stand up and just say it. She would have won, and yet she wouldn't even put the hat on. Even Anagramma would have fallen over herself for the honour of being lent Mistress Weatherwax's hat.

Tiffany could have won, could have left with everyone's respect, and she just let it pass her by. She could have had everyone's respect, but she didn't need it.

_And that both confused and worried Anagramma, who needed everyone's respect and was never certain if she had it._

She finally had her own cottage, but everything started to go wrong immediately. They were all so small and stupid, and seemed to think she would actually care about their silky little feuds and problems. It was not what she had expected, what she had dreamed of. She had her own cottage, and nothing was going right.

_They did not respect her._

It took everything crumbling around her to discover that pride alone was hollow; to realise that she had been taught magic, but not how to be a witch.

It wasn't until she was forced to beg for help and expected none that she realised she had really wanted the others to like her all along, because it wasn't until she asked that she realised how scared she would be that the answer would be _no_.

It was then that she learnt that Miss Level taught humility, pride in caring and helping, that Tiffany had needed no fanfare because she needed no-one's respect to know she was a witch. That there was competition and independence, but there was also isolation, and it could be a fine line that you crossed without even realising it.

She learnt that pride alone was hollow, but pride in a job well done, pride in protecting where possible, helping where needed, pride based in action not self-opinion was not.

* * *

Anagramma was a witch, and she was _proud_.


End file.
